Leading green politicians defend the demolition of Lützerath. For the Swedish climate activist Thunberg incomprehensible: She draws a comparison to the novel “Lord of the Rings”.
Greta Thunberg has criticized Germany’s Greens for supporting the demolition of Lützerath and digging up the coal lying beneath the village. Corporations like RWE should actually be held accountable for how they treat people.
“The fact that the Greens make compromises with such companies shows where their priorities lie,” said the Swedish climate activist in an interview with the German Press Agency. She herself was never associated with a green party.
Leading Green politicians such as Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and his NRW colleague Mona Neubaur defend the demolition of Lützerath by saying that the coal underneath is needed to maintain energy security in the current crisis. Thunberg said: “The coal that is here in the ground will not immediately lower prices. Anyone who thinks so simply has no connection to reality.”
Thunberg said in front of the demonstrators: “Lützerath is still there, and as long as the coal is still in the ground, this fight is not over.” The protesters would clearly show that change will not come from the people in power. “No, the real leaders are here. It’s the people who sit in the tree houses and who have been defending Lützerath for years now.”
Thunberg said it was incomprehensible that coal would still be mined and burned in 2023, despite the fact that the resulting climate change is taking lives in many parts of the world. “Germany, as one of the world’s biggest polluters, has an enormous responsibility,” she warned. Despite the very bad weather, many thousands of people took part in the rally. The police spoke of up to 10,000 participants, the organizers, including Fridays for Future, even estimated the number at 35,000.
Thunberg supports local protests against the eviction
The 20-year-old came to Germany to support the protest against the eviction and demolition of Lützerath. “I’ve been here before, and it looked completely different then,” she told dpa. “It’s very sad to see. It’s a very different place now.” She said of the crater landscape of the Rhenish lignite mining area: “It really looks like Mordor. It shows what people are capable of under the wrong conditions. It shows what we are fighting against, what we want to prevent.” In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novel, Mordor is the realm and base of the evil Sauron.
Thunberg had already visited Lützerath on Friday and denounced “police violence”. Aachen police chief Dirk Weinspach had vehemently rejected the criticism. On the contrary, the police acted with extreme caution, he said. When asked if she maintained her criticism of the police, Thunberg told dpa: “Police violence means different things in different countries. But there have been several cases in which the police have endangered the lives of activists.”
Source: Stern
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